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Stalin the Charismatic Leader?: Explaining the ‘Cult of Personality’ as a Legitimation Technique

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 12; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/21567689.2011.624410

2156-7689

Carol Strong, M. Jimmie Killingsworth,

Critical Theory and Philosophy

Abstract This article reassesses Stalin's attempts to construct legitimacy through the development of a 'cult of personality', built through an overt co-option of the charismatic authority generated by Lenin's revolutionary leadership. While seemingly counterintuitive, it will be argued that Max Weber's theory of charismatic authority offers a constructive tool with which to examine Stalin's attempt to construct legitimacy through the creation of the 'cult of personality'. Through the application of routinised charisma, Stalin's attempts at legitimation are not only better understood, but also present further avenues for exploring non-democratic legitimation techniques through the use of modern media. Notes 1A great deal of literature is devoted to discussions on the usefulness of totalitarianism as an analytical tool, some of it promoting the argument that totalitarianism lost most of its value when it was appropriated as an anti-communist weapon during the Cold War (for example, see K. Mueller, 'East European Studies, Neo-Totalitarianism and Social Science Theory' in A. Siegel (ed), The Totalitarian Paradigm After the End of Communism: Towards a Theoretical Reassessment (Amsterdam and Atlanta, Ga.: Rodopi, 1998), pp. 55–90; and B. Barber and H. Spiro, 'Counter-Ideological Uses of "Totalitarianism"', Politics and Society, 1 (1970), pp. 3–21). However, such arguments focus on the analytical value of the term post-1953. The use of the term here adopts Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski's six 'basic features or traits… generally recognised to be common to totalitarian dictatorships', an approach that constituted the most dominant paradigm in studies on Communist systems up to the beginning of the 1960s (see C.J. Friedrich and Z. Brzezinski, Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy, 2nd ed., (New York, Washington and London: Praeger, 1966), p. 22). 2Max Weber,; transl. A. R. Henderson and Talcott Parsons The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (London: William Hodge, 1947), p. 113. 3Max Weber, transl. H.P. Secher Basic Concepts in Sociology (New York: The Citadel Press, 1962), pp. 71–72. 5T.H. Rigby, 'Introduction: Political Legitimacy, Weber and Communist Mono-organisational Systems' in T.H. Rigby and F. Fehér (eds), Political Legitimation in Communist States (London: MacMillan, 1982), p. 1. 4Fatos Tarifa, 'The Quest for Legitimacy and the Withering Away of Utopia', Social Forces, 76:2 (1997), pp. 437–473 (p. 439). 6Tarifa, p. 440; emphasis added. 7Mark Wright, 'Ideology and Power in the Czechoslovak Political System' in P. G. Lewis (ed), Eastern Europe: Political Crisis and Legitimation (London and Sydney: Croom Helm, 1984), p. 111. 8Often these critics upheld those sections of Machiavellian theory that create the impression that certain leaders have the potential to rule by coercion and terror tactics alone. Paradoxically, this approach is not fully supported by Machiavelli, who in contrast to the misinformed conclusion that to be 'Machiavellian' was to employ raw (and often brutal) power, actually worked against such a concept. Machiavelli issues a warning to potential leaders that if the choice is made while accumulating political power 'to kill one's fellow citizens, betray one's friends, be without pity, and without religion', all virtue and glory is forfeited (Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince and The Discourses (New York: The Modern Library, 1950), p. 32). Even here, it is intimated that political leaders must always keep their subjects in mind, if legitimacy was to be retained. Having said this, Machiavelli certainly did not dismiss the use of brute force, instead arguing that 'it is necessary to order things so that when… [the people] no longer believe, they can be made to believe by force'. The implication is that it was safer for a prince to be hated rather than loved, but only if 'one of the two has to be wanting' (Machiavelli, p. 9). 9Stephen White, Political Culture and Soviet Politics (London: The Macmillan Press, Ltd., 1979), pp. 180–188; see also Carol Strong, The Role of Charismatic Leadership in Ending the Cold War: The Presidencies of Boris Yeltsin, Vaclav Havel and Helmut Kohl (New York: The Edwin Mellon Press, 2009), pp. 59–62. 10Jan Pakulski, 'East European Revolutions and "Legitimacy Crisis"', in Janina Frentzel- Zagórska (ed), From a One-Party State to Democracy: Transition in Eastern Europe (Amsterdam-Atlanta, Ga.): Rodopi, 1993), p. 45. 11Aleksandar Pavković, Slobodan Jovanović: An Unsentimental Approach to Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 122. 12Weber, Economy and Society, vol. 3, p. 1113. 13Weber, Economy and Society, vol.1, pp. 215, 241–242. 14Weber, Economy and Society, vol.1, pp. 241–242. 15Jay Conger & Rabindra Kanungo, Charismatic Leadership in Organisations (Thousand Oaks, CA.; London: Sage Publications, 1998), p. 89; see also Strong, pp. 128–130. 16Weber, Economy and Society, vol. 3, p. 1116. 17Reinhard Bendix, Max Weber, an intellectual portrait (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor, 1962), pp. 299–300; see also Strong, pp. 79–83. 18Bendix, p. 301. 19Weber, Economy and Society, vol. 3, pp. 1113–1116. 20Strong, pp. 204–207. 21Weber, Economy and Society, vol. 1, pp. 243–244. 22M. Rainer Lepsius, 'Charismatic Leadership: Max Weber's Model and its Applicability to the Rule of Hitler' in Carl F. Graumann and Serge Moscovici (eds) Changing Conceptions of Leadership (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1986), pp. 53–66; see also Strong, pp. 114–120. 23Machiavelli, p.22. 24Weber, Economy and Society, vol.3, pp. 1120–1122. 26Weber, Economy and Society, vol.3, p. 1121. 25Weber, Economy and Society, vol.1, pp. 246–249; see also Wolfgang Schluchter,; transl. Neil Solomon Rationalism, Religion, and Domination: A Weberian Perspective (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Oxford: University of California Press, 1989), pp. 230–239; and Strong, pp. 114–120. 27Weber, Economy and Society, vol.1, p. 248. 28This is further emphasized when Weber writes 'If this [pure charismatic authority] is not to remain a purely transitory phenomenon, but to take on the character of a permanent relationship…it is necessary for the character of charismatic authority to become radically changed…It cannot remain stable, but becomes either traditionalized or rationalised, or a combination of both' (Weber, Economy and Society vol.3, p. 1222). 29Max Weber, 'The Meaning of Discipline' in; transl. Hans Gerth and Charles Wright-Mills From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (London: Oxford University Press, 1957), p. 253. 31Weber, Economy and Society, vol.3, p. 1121. 30Weber, Economy and Society, vol.1, pp. 246–254. 32Weber, Economy and Society, vol.3, p. 1122. 33Joseph Bensman and Michael Givant, 'Charisma and Modernity: The Use and Abuse of a Concept', Social Research, Winter (1975), pp. 570–615 (p. 580). 34Weber, Economy and Society, vol.3, p. 1121. See also Bensman and Givant, p. 580. 35Weber, Economy and Society, vol.3, p. 1120; see also Strong, pp. 114–120. 36Weber, Economy and Society, vol.3, p. 1139. 37This debate is further inspired by Habermas, who questions whether or not it is possible to create, re-enforce, or even replace a sense of legitimacy in society once it has been compromised. In accordance with his conclusion that stagnated or fragile forms of legitimation can indeed be re-invigorated (Jürgen Habermas in William Outhwaite (ed), Habermas Reader (Cambridge and Oxford: Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1996), pp. 58, 261). 38Ronald Glassman, 'Legitimacy and Manufactured Charisma', Social Research, Winter 1975, pp. 615–636 (p.624). While historically disparate from this article, it could be argued that contemporary forms of mass media, in particular the scope of the Internet, brings the people closer to their leaders, or at least allow it to appear that way, rather than moving them farther apart. 39Glassman, p. 618. 40Glassman, p. 630. 41Glassman, pp. 630–632; see also Strong, pp. 197–199. 42Vladimir Lenin, What Is to Be Done? Burning Questions of Our Movement (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1975) p. 45. 43Bensman and Givant, p.601. This argument is representative of analysts that believe that modern forms of communication, and the way they are utilized in modern politics, 'depersonalize' the relationship between leader and lead, and hence remove any magic or mysticism that underpins the charismatic bond. 44Karl Loewenstein,; transl. Richard and Clara Winston Max Weber's Political Ideas in the perspective of our Own Time (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1966), pp. 84–86. 45This idea is supported by Anne Ruth Willner, who argues that 'mass communications media can serve as a powerful means for promoting charismatic appeal; it is doubtful if they can create it where there is little or no basis for its generation' (Anne Ruth Willner, Charismatic Political Leadership: A Theory (Centre of International Studies, Princeton University, 1968), p. 14. 46Ralph Miliband and Marcel Liebman, 'Reflections on Anti-Communism', Socialist Register, 21 (1984), pp. 9–22 (p. 14). 47John Wheeler-Bennett, Brest-Litovsk: The Forgotten Peace, 1918 (London: Macmillan Press, 1938), pp. 16–18. 48Heller, p. 47. See also Nina Tumarkin, Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia, (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1997); see also Strong, pp. 163–171. 49It is commonly understood that Lenin shunned pubic adulation. Note the following abstract from The Nation; 'Three cities, innumerable villages, collectives, schools, factories, and institutions have been named after (Stalin), and now someone has started a movement to Christen the Turksib the "Stalin Railway". I have gone back over the newspapers from 1919 to 1922: Lenin never permitted such antics and he was more popular that Stalin can ever hope to be' (cited in Robert Tucker, 'The Rise of Stalin s Personality Cult', The American Historical Review, 84:2 (1979), pp. 347–366 (pp. 348–349). 50As concluded by Von Laue, 'Stalin was the perfect Leninist by more than his own, all too brazenly proclaimed judgment. His rise to power did not mark, therefore, a Thermidorian reaction, but rather Fructidor, the high summer of fruition for the most dynamic and emotion-charged element of Bolshevism' (Von Laue, p. 202). 51David Brandenburger, 'Stalin as Symbol: a case study of the personality cult and its construction', in Sarah Davies and James Harris (eds) Stalin: a new history (Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 251. 52Agnes Heller, 'Phases of Legitimation in Soviet-Type Societies', in T.H. Rigby and F. Fehér (eds), Political Legitimation in Communist States (New York: St Martin's Press, 1982), p. 50. 53See Nina Tumarkin, Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia, (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1997), pp. 64–111. 54Michael Kimmel, Revolution: A Sociological Interpretation (Cambridge and Oxford: Polity Press, 1990), pp. 34, 191. 55Tumarkin, pp. 252–253. 56Tumarkin, p. 253. 58Cited in Eric van Ree, The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin: A study in twentieth-century revolutionary patriotism (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 162. 57Barrington Moore, Soviet Politics: The Dilemma of Power (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950), pp. 228–229. Also see Georg Brunner, 'Legitimacy Doctrines and Legitimation Procedures in East European Systems' in T.H. Rigby and F. Fehér (eds) Political Legitimation in Communist States (London: MacMillan, 1982), pp. 27–44; and Graeme Gill, 'Personal Dominance and the Collective Principle: Individual Legitimacy in the Marxist-Leninist Systems', in T.H. Rigby & F. Fehér (eds), Political Legitimation in Communist States, (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982), p. 95. 59See Roy Medvedev, Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism (New York, Columbia University Press, 1989), pp. 817–818; van Ree, pp. 163–168; and Plamper, p. 41. 60van Ree, p. 168. 61Monte Palmer, Dilemmas of Political Development: An Introduction to the Politics of the Developing Areas (Itasca: F.E. Peacock Publishers Inc., 1985), p. 186. 62Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries, 'Origins of Charisma: Ties that Bind the Leader and the Led', in Jay Conger, Rabindra Kanungo and Associates (eds) Charismatic Leadership: The Elusive Factor in Organisational Effectiveness (San Francisco and Oxford: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1988), p. 240. 63Strong, pp. 120–122. 64Leslie Holmes, Post-Communism: An Introduction (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997), p. 47; see also Plamper, pp. 169–225. 65For Friedrich, Hitler represents a 'very different kind of leadership than the founders…of a religion'. To further explore his argument and critique, see Carl Friedrich, 'Political Leadership and the Problem of Charismatic Power', The Journal of Politics, 23:1 (1964), pp. 3–24 (p. 15). 66Friedrich, p. 16. 67Pakulski argues that 'none of the Weberian types of legitimate authority seem to apply to Soviet-type societies' (Pakulski, 'Legitimacy and Mass Compliance: Reflections on Max Weber and Soviet-Type Societies', British Journal of Political Science, 16:1 (1986), pp. 35–56 (p. 45), while Rees suggests that 'whilst Weber's typology offers a useful starting point for discussing leader cults it is also in some ways misleading' (E.A. Rees, 'Leader Cults: Varieties, Preconditions and Functions' in B. Apor, J. Behrends, P. Jones and E. A. Rees (eds) The Leader Cult in Communist Dictatorships: Stalin and the Eastern Bloc (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) pp. 3–29). 68Jeffrey Brooks, Thank you Comrade Stalin!: Soviet Public Culture from the Revolution to the Cold War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), p. 60. 69Roy Medvedev,; transl. E. de Kadt On Stalin and Stalinism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 770. 70Brandenburger, p. 254. 71Cited in Brandenburger, p. 255. 72Brandenburger, p. 254. 73Medvedev, On Stalin and Stalinism, p. 187. 74Paul Wingrove, 'The Mystery of Stalin', History Today, 53:3 (2003), pp. 18–20 (p. 18); see also Jeffrey Brooks, 'Stalin's Politics of Obligations', Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 4:1 (2003), pp. 47–68 (pp. 49–50). 75Graeme Gill, 'The Soviet Leader Cult: Reflections on the Structure of Leadership in the Soviet Union', British Journal of Political Science, 10:2 (1980), pp. 167–186 (p. 168). 76Brooks, Thank you Comrade Stalin!, p. 61. 77Rees, p. 15; see also Brooks, 2003, pp. 47–50. 78Brooks, 'Stalin's Politics of Obligations', p. 50. 79Wingrove, p. 18. 80Sarah Davies argues that during the 1930s, Stalin expressed some reservations about the promotion of the cult, arguing that to focus on the leader was 'unbolshevik' (Sarah Davies, 'Stalin and the Making of the Leader cult in the 1930s', in B. Apor et. al., pp. 29–46). This said, Stalin, who was undoubtedly in the position to do so, did not cease the cultivation of the cult. The cult could not have assumed such proportions without his approval. 81Brooks, 2003, p. 49. 82See John Barber, 'The Image of Stalin in Soviet Propaganda and Public Opinion During World War 2' in John Garrard and Carol Garrard (eds) World War 2 and the Soviet People: Selected Papers from the Fourth World Congress for Soviet and East European Studies, Harrogate, 1990 (New York: St. Martin's Press 1993), pp. 38–50. Among the more famous odes to Stalin is M. Ciaureli's The Fall of Berlin, in which Stalin not only makes a visit to defeated Berlin, but also reunites two lovers who were separated by the war (Robert H. McNeal, Stalin: Man and Ruler (Houndmills: Macmillan Press, 1988), p. 264). 83Roy Medvedev, Let History Judge, p. 749. 84Cited in Brooks, Thank you Comrade Stalin!, p. 64. 85Gill, 'Personal Dominance', p. 101. 86Cited in Tucker, 'The Rise of Stalin's personality cult', p. 356. 87Nadezhda Mandelstam,; transl. M. Hayward Hope against Hope: a Memoir (London: Collins, 1971), p. 259. 88Cited in Tucker, 'The Rise of Stalin's Personality Cult', p. 363. 89Cited in Karen Petrone, Life Has Become More Joyous, Comrades: Celebrations In the Time of Stalin (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), p. 217. 90Cited in Raymond Bauer, 'The Pseudo-Charismatic Leader in Soviet Society', Problems of Communism, 2:3-4 (1953), pp. 11–14 (p. 13). 91Cited in Brooks, Thank you Comrade Stalin!, p. 66. 92Brooks, 'Stalin's Politics of Obligations', p. 48. 93Cited in Brooks, Thank you Comrade Stalin!, p. 60. 94Sara Fenander, 'Author and Autocrat: Tertz's Stalin and the Ruse of Charisma', The Russian Review, 58 (April 1999), pp. 286–97 (p. 286). 95Rees, pp. 12–13. 96Lev Kopelev,; transl. Gary Kern The Education of a True Believer (New York: Harper, 1980), pp. 266–267. 97Willner, p. 6. 98Nikita Khrushchev's 'secret speech', delivered to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956, spoke explicitly of errors committed by the Stalin regime. It wasn't until 1961 that Khrushchev made reference to crimes committed by the regime. Although it was a 'secret' speech, samizdat copies were circulated throughout the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. 99Polly Jones, 'From Stalinism to Post-Stalinism: De-Mythologising Stalin, 1953-56', Totalitarian Movements & Political Religions, 4:1 (2003), pp. 127–132 (p.132). 100Kopelev, p. 267. 101See Medvedev, Let History Judge, pp. 302–303. 102Sarah Davies, 'The Leader Cult: Propaganda and its Reception in Stalin's Russia', in John Channon (ed) Politics, Society and Stalinism in the USSR (London: Macmillan Press, 1998), p. 131.